


Much Ado About Muffins

by CatrinaSL, Stella_Malodi



Series: Silly Words for the Silly Soul(mate fic) [25]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: (I was not expecting 'muffins' to be a tag.), (That's actually a tag!), Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Fluff and Crack, Helpful Steve Rogers, Meet-Cute, Muffins, SHIP DARCY WITH ALL THE THINGS, Scientist Wrangler Darcy Lewis, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-09 06:12:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6893329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatrinaSL/pseuds/CatrinaSL, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stella_Malodi/pseuds/Stella_Malodi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy has muffins and is not afraid to use them. (As bribes, that is. What? They're really good muffins!) Or: In Which Steve Is An Obliging Pack-Mule And Everyone Says 'Muffin' A Lot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Much Ado About Muffins

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LadyOfShadows](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyOfShadows/gifts).



> Another prompt filled! This one's from LadyTale: "Darcy: Hey, tall, blond, and studly! Thor's not here and someone needs to drag Jane away from the Science! before she faints on it. So, uh, give a girl a hand? I promise to pay you in coffee and really good muffins."
> 
> Friendly Reminder: In this Soulmate AU, everyone is born with a tattoo of the first words their Soulmate will say to them, in their Soulmate's handwriting. Showing or telling anyone what it says is a big taboo.

It was… difficult for Darcy when Jane went on a Science! binge. For the first couple of days, it was easy to get food and drink into her, and distracting her with small talk for more than thirty seconds once every three hours allowed Jane to disengage for long enough to realize that she had to use the restroom. But after a week, when Jane had been doing five minute cat naps on the lab bench and requesting more and more and _more_ coffee, Darcy began to consider swapping out the life-giving liquid for decaf.

Occasionally, a tall, blond, and studly god would show up and place his hammer over Jane’s notebook to make her get some rest. But it wasn’t like he could make a trip from another world every time his girlfriend got caught up in the whirlwind of a new theory.

Once, Darcy pulled the fire alarm. Jane got doused in fire suppressant and yelled at Darcy for longer than she ever had before. (In fact, she only stopped when she fell asleep mid-”and if you _ever_ do that again, I’ll—”)

Another time, a Hulk-related emergency forced Jane to evacuate her lab. And the tower. And the island of Manhattan. But Darcy had nothing to do with it. Really!

Most recently, Stark got tired of listening to Darcy whine about the Science! binge and told Darcy to make use of her taser. “It couldn’t possibly be that easy,” she had replied. (It was.)

Darcy sighed as she watched Jane work. It was only day three, but she already knew it was happening again. Jane hadn’t slept the night before, and Darcy had already refilled her (rather large) coffee cup six times by ten AM and had successfully distracted her twice. She had been hoping to get some work done herself that week, but a Science! binge meant that she needed to keep a close eye on her scientist.

“Darcy?” Jane called, waving her cup in the air without looking up from what she was doing. With a yawn, she requested “Coffee?” and put the cup back down, returning to the formulas in front of her.

Darcy considered the cup. She wondered if Jane would notice it was empty.

It was worth a shot.

 

* * *

 

 Three hours later, Jane was drifting. Her eyes fluttered shut over her notebook, and her head drifted down to rest on it. Thankfully, Darcy was there to catch her. She’d repented of her coffee-withholding sins and hit Jane’s favorite bakery to grab a latte and a six pack of their heavenly cinnamon peach muffins, only to return to success! She was glad to know that “forgetting” to refill Jane’s coffee could prevent a Science! binge, and resolved to try that again the next time she noticed one beginning.

But that didn’t help her present situation.

Sleepy!Jane was too much scientist for Darcy to wrangle, which said more about Darcy’s exercise regimen than it did about Jane’s pastry-based diet. She slowly lowered her sleeping boss to the ground and went in search of help. Godly assistance was out of the question, of course, but maybe she could find someone else to play the role of Ripped Superhero in Thor’s absence. Or at least ‘Good-Natured/Easily Persuaded Person Capable of Hauling Jane’s Scientist Butt off to Bed.’

Bruce wasn’t in his lab, but before Darcy had to resort to begging (or, ah, _borrowing)_ an Iron Man suit from Tony, a heavily muscled solution walked out of the billionaire’s lab. “Hey, tall, blond, and studly!” she called as her potential pack mule headed for the elevator. “Jane passed out on the Science! and Thor's not here to carry her to her room. So, uh, give a girl a hand? I promise to pay you in coffee and really good muffins.”

‘Tall, blond, and studly,’ who she now recognized as Captain Steven Grant “America” Rogers, stopped in his tracks, then turned slowly to face her. And, hey, points to him: his eyes went to her face and stayed there. He looked shocked at first, then really, really happy. Which was a little weird. She understood shock; it was a common reaction to her awesomeness. The happiness, though? Who looked genuinely _ecstatic_ to be recruited as a pack mule?

Maybe he required more convincing. “Cinnamon peach muffins? I promise, they’re the best muffins in New York. Or maybe the entire Eastern Seaboard. At least New England. I’m pretty sure.”

He didn’t stop smiling, but began walking toward her, stopping only when they were a few inches apart. Darcy stared up into his face. “Does this mean you’ll help?” she asked, a bit weirded out.

And then he said it: “I’m yours. Whatever you need.”

“Oh,” was her witty and intellectually stimulating reply. The Words on her arm flashed through her mind as, for the first time, then sounded in her ears.  _Those are mine. He’s… mine._ “She’s… um… in here.”

Her Soulmate, Captain America, broke eye contact and entered Jane’s lab. He scooped her up and followed Darcy to the elevator. They snuck looks at each other on the way up to Jane’s apartment, but remained silent until after the sleepy scientist was safely tucked into her bed.

“So,” Steve said as they walked back to the elevator. “Soulmates.”

“Yeah. Oh, do you want to see?” she asked, though she’d already stopped and pushed up her sleeve. He nodded anyway and stepped closer, then trailed a finger over the words. She shivered.

“That’s my handwriting,” he confirmed, his voice soft. “Do you want to see yours?”

She nodded; he took a step back, _pulled off his shirt_ , and turned around.

Like her, he shivered when she traced the letters covering his back. As distracting as _that_ was, she couldn’t help but grin as she read his Words. By the end of it, her grin had turned into full-blown guffaws. She rested her forehead on his back as she laughed. “Oh my Thor. I called you ‘tall, blond, and studly.’ And I—muffins. I took up your _entire back_ , talking about _muffins!”_

He chuckled slightly, but his voice was low when he replied, “Well, they’d, uh… they’d better be pretty good. I’ve been looking forward to them my entire life.”

“Oh, right,” she said, abruptly straightening and taking a step back. Was she blushing? A hand on her cheek proved that, yes, she was almost definitely blushing. “Um. I, uh, I think I left them down…” She trailed off as he turned around. “… stairs. They’re downstairs.” She spent a moment appreciating _exactly_ how good her Soulmate looked without a shirt on, then squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. When she opened her eyes again, Steve had replaced the missing clothing. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have… I didn’t mean to stare at your chest like that. I know how annoying that can be.”

He smiled slightly. “It’s fine. Uh, muffins?”

She nodded. “Muffins. Totally.” She looked up at him, head tilted to the side, and began to smirk. “You know what? I’m calling you ‘Studmuffin.’ That is officially my pet name for you.”

He raised an eyebrow and smirked back. “It is, is it?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Then I’m calling _you_ ‘Muffin.’”

She laughed. _“I_ see how it is. Well, are you ready for muffins, Studmuffin?”

He gestured down the hall. “After you, Muffin.”

“I’m not sure if this is something I’m going to get tired of, or if it’s going to be one of those weird _us_ things that becomes so normal we forget it’s weird,” she said as they started walking.

“I don’t know, but I’m looking forward to finding out.”

She reached out and took his hand. “Let’s go, Studmuffin.”

He squeezed her hand. “Anywhere you want, Muffin.”

 

* * *

  
“No, Darcy, ‘The Muffin Man’ is _not_ going to be ‘our song.’”

**Author's Note:**

> True story: I started writing this at the same time I wrote "Don't Drink the Coffee." For a while, I was going to combine them into one story, but that... quickly didn't work. And then they were too similar, and so I kind of gave up on this one. But then! Then CatrinaSL came along and made it awesome! And totally its own thing! Aaaaand... then we both got stuck on the ending. Then, yesterday, I was like, "Man, I really need to get something ready to post tomorrow." And she was like, "Why don't you take a look at Tall, Blond, and Studly [the working title for this fic]?" And I said, "Sure!" and proceeded to write the muffin-tastic ending. Yeah, I don't know either.
> 
> Hey, relevant question: Do you guys actually want to hear stuff like that in the A/N? Or is it just like "Jeeze, author, shut up already with your dumb side stories; I'm just here for the awesome fic!" OR, would you like to hear about it, but maybe not in the A/N? Because I'm trying to actually use [my tumblr account](http://stella-malodi.tumblr.com), and that seems like it might be a better place to put writing anecdotes. 
> 
> ALSO! I _am_ trying to do better about replying to comments! But, last week's crazy posting-every-day and replying to ALL THE COMMENTS ended with stress headaches, hiding in my room, and slightly freaking out about whether or not "Thank you!" was an appropriate/grammatically-sensible response to "Love it!" So. There are, y'know, actual _reasons_ why I am kind of bad at replying/interacting. It's not that I don't want to! I do actually LOVE comments! (So much. You have _no_ idea (unless you're an author).) I just... get kinda stressed about replying to them. (So, uh, please don't stop commenting? Comments don't stress me out. Comments make me happy. Comments are life. _Replying_ to comments stresses me out. So, don't take it personally if I don't?)
> 
> Okay, this A/N is getting way long. And probably TMI-ish. So, uh, prompts! We love them; please give them to us! It might take them a while to actually appear, but we keep them all in a folder in google docs. :)


End file.
